Once upon a time in the land of Johnson City,
Tennessee, I was born to a very young couple. I was their second child. I have
no memories of being in the playpen while my mother slept, but I heard it for
years about the incident. The joke, or rather, the yoke is on me. While my
mother slept, my sister pulled out every food item possible out of the kitchen
and dumped it on top of me in the play pen. Does this sound normal to you? What
could have driven my sister to do that to me, a defenseless toddler?
I remember in the early 1970’s living in the
suburbs of Detroit. We lived in a two story house on Greenview on a corner lot
across from a park. This was a convenient location for me and my 3 siblings,
giving us close access for a place to play. It was also convenient for the
long-haired hippies who sat on the side of our property facing the park. They
never interfered with our playing as we raced up the sidewalk on our bikes and
Big Wheels or chased after the ice-cream truck. We were free to roam the
streets and allies at night while we played games with the other children on
our block. One can imagine that we learned how to be real hellions in this environment.
The local kids would laugh and make fun of us as we chased our youngest brother
through the park. He was making the transition from diapers to big boy pants
and dashed from the house naked – on two occasions. That was something to laugh
about for years.
I soon discovered the blonde and freckled-faced
Timmy O’Malley who lived two houses down from us. His wit and tongue were as
sharp as he was cute. We also took advantage of the five foot pool in the O’Malley’s
back yard.
We discovered Devil’s Night, the night before
Halloween. We learned it was a tradition
in which kids went around throwing eggs at passing cars, soaping windows, and
setting dog poop on fire at someone’s front door, then ringing the door bell.
When the owner came out to stamp out the fire, well, you know what happened
next. Afterwards, I felt like it was a stupid ritual that made me feel like a
little hoodlum. There was no honor in messing up people’s houses or cars or
scrawling dirty words in the street.
The second bad thing we learned to do was during
the winter season we would grab the rear bumper of a passing car and go skiing
down the road. The driver would fish-tale back and forth to force us to let go.
We thought it was fun; we never thought of the consequences.
The third thing that we learned is to never
start a fire when you are under the porch. This could lead to catching the
house on fire, as evidence of the large bubble in the kitchen floor. And it does
tend to call attention to oneself with the fire trucks and all. I cannot take
credit for that one.
There came a time when I was initiated into the “Big
Girls’ Club” which only consisted of my sister and a neighborhood girl. They
took me to the basement, blindfolded me, and then stuck my hand in a jar of
goop. They said that it was the guts of a person. I reacted in fear and started
whimpering. It turned out to be a jar of peanut butter.
A couple of years down the road, my mother’s
marriage failed to my stepfather. She was alone to support 4 children on her
own. Rumors spread through the neighborhood that we were being foreclosed on.
Soon afterwards some kids broke into our house. Then one day, a group of boys trespassed
into our back yard. I yelled at them to leave. They climbed up the apple trees.
All of the sudden they started pelting me with the apples from our own trees. I
frantically ran up the steps of the back porch to enter the house for
protection. To my horror, my sister locked the door and stood face to face with
me as she smiled wickedly. The more I screamed and pounded, the more she
laughed. My fear caused me to pound on the glass of the door until my fist
shattered it in pieces. As soon as I demolished the glass, the boys scattered
off the property. We later blamed the broken window on the boys who threw the
apples at me. This incident was seared into my brain for life. It begs an
answer to the question: who was the real bully?
